


Taking Out the Trash 6

by xtricks



Category: due South
Genre: Drama, M/M, Series, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-12
Updated: 2006-03-12
Packaged: 2018-11-10 07:27:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11122581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xtricks/pseuds/xtricks
Summary: Family History and Family ties brings Joshua Damian Kowalski to his uncle's doorstep - with mobsters in tow!





	Taking Out the Trash 6

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Speranza, the archivist: this story was once archived at [Due South Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Due_South_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Due South Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/duesoutharchive).

Taking Out the Trash 6

## Taking Out the Trash 6

  
by X-Tricks  


Disclaimer: Un-beta'd alas.

Author's Notes: Part 6 of a story I started 6 years ago. I'd say it's about 3/4s done, now.

Story Notes: There is some violence, nasty language and etc in this story as a whole. There is one sexual scene in previous story but this tale is not a romance or a sex story but rather an cop story. Vecchio *and* Kowalski show up here.

* * *

"Okay, okay, do we have it all? We're running late," Vecchio bashed elbows with O'Brian. "C'mon, give a guy some room here!" Which earned him a scowl, then O'Brian walked off, leaving Vecchio to play catch-up with his coat hanging off his arms.  
  
"Here's the flight number -" Sandy was saying, still filling in for Frannie while she was on maternity leave. Vecchio ran a hand over his head, Sandy - blonde as her name - was good at the job but half the department still pined after his sister, or at least, her cappachino machine. "And _here's_ the hotel information, just the way you wanted it."  
  
"What's the name?" O'Brian asked as he took the folder, flipping through it with a frown. He had damn good reason to be worried, he was the one getting death threats on his phone - Welsh had moved him to a safe house until the Spanetti case was closed. _Somebody_ thought they were close and that made Vecchio nervous. It made the whole damn department nervous because there weren't a whole lot of ways for somebody to get a cop's home phone except through a leak in the division. Yeah, everyone knew there were crooked cops in the world but no one liked to have their nose rubbed in it, especially not on a mob case.  
  
"Stanley French, Buddy French his brother and their nephew Joshua."  
  
"Oh, that's a _great_ idea," Vecchio complained with a shudder. Now it was almost creepy - two guys pretending to be brothers who were ... anything but. "Benny and Kowalski look just like brothers."  
  
"It's just until we can get the kid's statement and send them home," O'Brian said. "Thanks, Sandy." She gave him a smile and a wink as if she didn't know he was gay. Vecchio let O'Brian page his way through the files as they piled into the Riv and headed to the airport.  
  
"The - uh - Mountie used to be your partner, right?" O'Brian said, nose buried in the file, when they hit the freeway and the traffic.  
  
"A bit longer than two years," Vecchio said. God, he hadn't even seen Benny since ... since the wedding. Vecchio rubbed his palms over the steering wheel. He hadn't seen Kowalski since the Muldoon screw up. He hadn't seen the two of them together, ever. He blew out a sharp sigh; it wouldn't matter. He wouldn't let it. Benny was his best friend and who the hell cared who he slept with? Christ.  
  
"And he worked with this Kowalski too."  
  
"Yeah, he did. Worked with him real good," Vecchio snapped. O'Brian's look was sharp and Vecchio shrugged it off irritably. "He's a good cop. They're both good cops. Not that you can tell from looking at Kowalski. But - he's a good guy."  
  
A gun couldn't make him spit that out in front of Kowalski but Vecchio had seen the files once he was back from Vegas. Kowalski had kept Vecchio's name out of the mud more than once. He'd even cleaned up after some of Vecchio's own messes. Vecchio thought of Stella, he'd tried to clean up after Kowalski - and failed.  
  
"Kowalski moved to Canada?"  
  
"Guess he liked the snow," Vecchio said uncomfortably. He sure as hell wasn't going to talk about Benny's sex life with O'Brian - or anybody.  
  
"He must have."  
  
Thank god, they were almost at the airport.  
  
Vecchio saw the stetson first, then Benny, then Kowalski's scrawny body and sandwiched between them - like a perp - a kid too damn young to end up in this kind of mess.  
  
"Looks skinny enough," was all O'Brian said.  
  
"Yeah - _Benny!_ " Vecchio eeled his way through the crush to throw his arms around Benny's shoulders with O'Brian a step or two behind. It was like hugging a tree, a tree that unbent enough to hug him back, something Benny wouldn't've done when they first met. Vecchio leaned back to look Benny in the face. "Looking good there, Benny, all that freezing nothing is doing you good."  
  
"Thank you, Ray, and you're looking very well too. That's an excellent suit style for you."  
  
Vecchio ran a pleased hand down the Armani. Only six months out of date, he'd gotten a steal down at the warehouse district. "Getting some taste there, finally, Benny - "  
  
"Yeah, yeah, whatever, can we -" Kowalski's whole body jerked like a fish on a line, leaning towards the exit. His grimace towards Vecchio could have been a smile. "Get outta here?  
  
"In some things, anyway," Vecchio said to Benny, with a smile for Kowalski's hostile glare. It wasn't like he'd ever seen anything else pointed in his direction.  
  
"Ray," Benny murmured, to which of them Vecchio couldn't tell.   
  
"Okay," Vecchio swung Benny towards the exit, swinging a hand towards O'Brian. "This is O'Brian, my partner." Everybody nodded and smiled except the kid who watched them all, except when he darted glances around the airport like he expected all the Mafia dons in Chicago to jump him. "That the kid?"  
  
"My nephew," Kowalski said sharply. "I'm his loco padre."  
  
_"In loco parentis,_ " Benny said softly.  
  
"Yeah, crazy all right." Kowalski muttered. The kid sneered, not that it made him look any less scared, and turned his shoulder to all of them.  
  
"O- _kay_ ," Vecchio said. Looked like one big happy family there. "Get in the car and lets get outta here. You've got a hotel room near the station, assumed names just in case -"  
  
"That seems a little excessive, "Benny, crowded in back with Kowalski and his nephew, said stiffly. O'Brian twisted around to answer him while Vecchio negotiated the tangle of freeway exits.  
  
"No," he said. "There's - some concern about information leaks."  
  
"Damn it!" Kowalski snapped. "You didn't say anything about that, _Vecchio_."  
  
"'Cause I didn't know, _Stanley_."  
  
"Yeah? What else don't you know that I should know, huh?"  
  
Vecchio bared his teeth at Kowalski in the rearview mirror. "I don't have time to read you the encyclopedia."  
  
" _Ray! Ray!_ " Benny broke in about when Vecchio could hear Kowalski winding up for an explosion. "Both of you, I have no intention of playing referee while I'm here! Can we please just focus your tempers on the criminals rather than each other?"  
  
"Here's your names, and the key," O'Brian handed over a packet to Fraser, acting deaf and dumb in the face of the snarling in the car. Vecchio smirked when he heard Kowalski groan.  
  
"I wonder _who_ chose the fucking names."  
  
"Look, kid, all we need is you to look at some mug shots, maybe pick a guy from a line-up - if we're lucky," Vecchio drummed cheerfully on the steering wheel. "Give us a statement -"  
  
"And stand up in the box," the kid broke in sullenly.  
  
"Only if we can get _to_ trial," he said. "Otherwise, everybody goes free."  
  
"Ray," Benny chided him.   
  
"Just saying it like it is, Benny," Vecchio shrugged. "You're safest bet is in helping us get these guys behind bars, kid."  
  
"My _name_ is Joshua." 

* * *

It seemed okay at the time, then when all those hours on the planes, crushed between Fraser and my uncle brought Chicago closer and closer, my gut started to remind me why I'd run in the first place. People like Vecchio were the reason.

He was just like any cop I'd ever met, looking me up and down with that honking nose and a sneer. Probably lucky he was letting me stay in a hotel room instead of him just tossing me in jail. Even my uncle didn't like him, which, I guess, didn't mean much. I'd been sitting on a plane with him for two days, he didn't like anybody - except Mr. Mountie. Who I sure as hell would be happy never to see again. All the 'if you pleases' and 'thank you kindlys' were making me crazy.

It was a long drive from the airport and nothing to do except look out the window at Chicago. Home sweet home and when we sped past some kids sitting on the curb, I wondered if I knew any of 'em. That made me remember Scotty, buried someplace and Mouse - I wondered who was keeping an eye out for her, now that Scotty was gone. Nobody probably. I hugged my arm to my chest and wondered if she was dead too, because of all this mess.

"All right," Vecchio blared, swinging his big old car into a tiny parking space. "Here's the joint. Rooms are paid up, room service is on the house -"

"Surely that's an excessive expense ..." Fraser said.

"And you all stay put, no touring the old neighborhoods." Vecchio interrupted, and on his heels my uncle went off too.

"Okay, this is messed up. If you got us holed up like ducks during open season, I want a gun, Vecchio."

The two of them couldn't open their mouths without snarling at each other, so I just climbed out after Fraser and went around back to help the quiet cop drag our stuff out of the back. I had a bag of my own by now, which was more than I'd left with. "That's mine," Fraser swung my bag into my arms and I struggled with the damn thing, wondering at the red dot of light crawling across his shoulder towards me as a car backfired then he pitched forward onto me, mouth sagging in amazement.

_"Fraser!"_

"Benny!"

"Jesus!"

And I was flat on my ass, with O'Brian hauling at my collar and it wasn't cars it was _guns_ and I shouted - but it didn't matter because that damn red dot skipped towards me across the cop and I scrambled to my feet as he went down with another gun-crack. The bastard was right here, right _there_ , across the street and staring right at me while I stood like a rube watching him lift that big ass gun. Fraser and O'Brian were down on the pavement.

I was standing in their blood.

Then I did what I always did best - and ran.

**TBC (031206)**

  
 

* * *

End Taking Out the Trash 6 by X-Tricks 

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